A diagram shows where the Zonar transponders are located on Kenowa Hills buses.
By JEFFREY CUNNINGHAM|MLIVE.COM 9-21-13

It will be the end of the school year before Kenowa Hills
school officials learn if the move to privatize busing last spring has saved
the district money. But busing representatives and school officials say the early returns on the move indicate it has been beneficial.

The school board last spring voted to hire Durham School Services, of Warrenville, Ill., to handle the district's entire
transportation department, including drivers, buses, dispatching, and
management.

Drivers pleaded with the district at the time not to privatize
busing, but after the vote said they would embrace the change.

Justin Grygiel, Durham's director of business development, and
other members of the new transportation staff discussed the transition at the Kenowa Hills school board meeting Monday. Grygiel said that 25 of the 30
former drivers for the district were rehired by Durham this summer. "Two
retired, two others went to other districts as they could continue in the
Michigan Schools Employees Retirement system, and the last one chose not to
seek employment with Durham," Grygiel said.

This summer, he said, drivers went through extensive training to ensure
that they were all handling not only their driving duties professionally but
all of the other customer service issues as well. "This was the
first year that all of the buses ran on time the first day of school," said
Kenowa Hills Board of Education member Kristi Menzel. "Their professionalism
was outstanding."

Drivers have been trained in a number of safety and security issues,
which allow them to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently, said Julie
Chlebek, former transportation supervisor and current Kenowa Hills transportation
director for Durham School Services.

In addition to assessing drivers' skills this summer and instituting
a professional training program, Durham installed the Zonar School Bus
Inspection system on each bus. Each bus was outfitted with a series of transponders that communicate information to the dispatch office in real time.

The Zonar hand-held scanner is used to record bus inspections.
By JEFFREY CUNNINGHAM|MLIVE.COM 9-21-13

With that system, the bus driver using a hand-held scanner waves the scanner over the
transponders distributed around the cabin of the bus as they inspect the cabin for
students who may have been left on the bus after a run. Chlebek said the
process insures that the driver does a thorough job on their inspections, which
are a vital part of bus safety. "It insures that the inspection was done
correctly and ends the 'he said, she said' arguments that happen when something
goes wrong," she said.

The system also transmits the actual location of the bus in real
time and allows the drivers to electronically submit repair and service
requests. "We know quickly when a bus has broken down or had another issue,"
Chlebek said.

This year drivers have check lists of students assigned to each
bus and riders are checked on and off the bus on each ride. While that data is not
stored electronically at this point, it does ensure riders get on the right bus
and off at the right stop. Having the Zonar system on the bus allows school
officials to see the route a driver took and all of the stops it made so if
there is a question about what time a bus arrived at a bus stop, the
information is quickly available.

Whether the improved transportation system is the reason or
not, 78 percent of students eligible to ride the bus in the district are riding
the bus. "That's up from 72 percent last year," Chlebek said. The district's enrollment is also up by 90 students over last fall and nearly 120 migrant students are taking the buses each day, which is also up from fall of 2012. "Our buses are
packed to the gills and that's a good problem to have," Chlebek said